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<title>last man standing by illusoryy</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25338409">last man standing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/illusoryy/pseuds/illusoryy'>illusoryy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Backstory, Monologue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:40:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>882</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25338409</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/illusoryy/pseuds/illusoryy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>a backstory monologue from the pov of my original character, ansel.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>last man standing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>there's a teeny tiny bit of specific description of gore but largely it's very vague</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I remember it vividly. Really vividly, I wish it was blurrier. I've tried to push the memories away, but it's never worked. They've always stayed there, bright and awful.</p><p>The village was very quiet, very run-of-the-mill, very peaceful. I meant to stay there only a week or two, but I arrived at a bad time. A few days after my arrival, an illness swept the place. A plague of weakness and fatigue. I was stricken with it, along with the rest of us.</p><p>There was a cleric - the local healer - who told us she could heal us, so of course we all went to her. She charged a high price, but she was the only chance we had at getting better.</p><p>I remember the first time I begged for her help, terrified I'd be weakened so much I'd never be able to live the life I dreamed of living. She met me with a warm smile, wove a healing spell over me, and sent me on my way. I was relieved, I felt the strength I'd missed come back to me. I slept soundly that night.</p><p>Is it any surprise I wasn't cured?</p><p>The next day I woke up feeling weaker than ever. I ran to her again, went home sure that now I would be okay, and woke up worse than I'd felt the day before. It went on a week or two, until I ran out of money. I ended up almost bedbound, only the generosity of strangers keeping me alive.</p><p>Even they were losing money fast, so there wasn't much for me to live on. My fair share as a guest was small, and I starved thin. I never really gained the weight I lost then back. Maybe the illness did something to my appetite.</p><p>One day it was reported back to me that it wasn't just the family I was staying at that was running out of money. The whole village was living on breadcrumbs by about two months after the plague first set in. That cleric had drained everyone dry, she lived like a queen on food brought in from other towns, wore finer clothes - and then one day, she closed down the clinic and left.</p><p>The village despaired. We'd already known we were doomed, but somehow this made it worse. We felt that now our fate was sealed, and- it's god-awful to say, but we were right.</p><p>I think it's called a tarrasque, the thing that attacked, two days after the clinic closed. I remember waking up to darkness and screaming, I remember the texture of those coarse bedsheets I was clutching when the noise jolted me awake. I remember it all down to the last detail.</p><p>Somehow - I still don't really know how - I made it out of bed for the first time in weeks, hobbled to the window, and looked out. That was the first sight I had of the thing, looming over the rooftops.</p><p>I heard a scream, cut short. A shiver ran down my spine.</p><p>I was so sure, then, that those few minutes were my last, and I had this conviction that I had to look at the world one last time. The trees, the sky, the stars. I made it down the stairs by clutching the bannister and hoping beyond hope I'd get my last look.</p><p>I kept hearing screams, and shivering hard. I didn't give much thought to the correlation. Why would I? I thought I was as good as dead. All I wanted to see the poor, beautiful world one last time.</p><p>Once I got outside, I opened my arms, looked up at the stars, breathed in fresh air tainted with the smell of blood, and shivered. It was as I closed my eyes, trying to feel the starlight on my skin, I realised what I was doing.</p><p>I was standing steady on my own two feet, arms raised to the sky, when barely a minute ago I couldn't walk without support. My strength that I thought was long gone seemed to be returning, just in time for my death. How poetic, I thought, how perfectly ironic.</p><p>A scream, cut short. A shiver down my spine. Still no connection.</p><p>I walked, as if I was being guided, down ruined streets, to meet the object of my death. Stood and watched as it destroyed my home. I hadn't realized until then that's what this place was, my home, and tears pricked in my eyes as I watched the death of these people, my family.</p><p>A claw pierced a heart, there was a scream, then silence, and a shiver down my spine.</p><p>The sound of bones breaking, a scream, cut short, and again a shiver down my spine.</p><p>A scream, cut short, a shiver down my spine, and a little strength returned.</p><p>That's when the realization hit.</p><p>For a moment I couldn't move, breath caught in my throat, every bone in my body full of horror, full of fear. I'd heard tell of those who defied death, who came out the last man standing after ships had sunk, schools has burned, villages had been destroyed. Some say they're chosen for greatness. Some say they're lucky.</p><p>We aren't. We're not lucky, we're condemned.</p><p>I was the last man standing that day.</p>
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